Posted
by
Zonkon Saturday May 26, 2007 @05:39PM
from the see-where-you-are-wrong-is-everywhere dept.

Noel Linback writes "A new creationism-espousing museum is opening in the state of Kentucky. According to a New York Times article the museum depicts humans and dinosaurs living together in traditional 'diorama' style exhibit. 'Whether you are willing to grant the premises of this museum almost becomes irrelevant as you are drawn into its mixture of spectacle and narrative. Its 60,000 square feet of exhibits are often stunningly designed by Patrick Marsh, who, like the entire museum staff, declares adherence to the ministry's views; he evidently also knows the lure of secular sensations, since he designed the Jaws and King Kong attractions at Universal Studios in Florida. For the skeptic the wonder is at a strange universe shaped by elaborate arguments, strong convictions and intermittent invocations of scientific principle. For the believer, it seems, this museum provides a kind of relief: Finally the world is being shown as it really is, without the distortions of secularism and natural selection. '"

Why are you protesting? Who gives a shit? As long as they keep their creationist crap out of our schools, that's all I care about.

This museum represents a direct attack on science. I give a shit because I happen to think that science and scientific literacy are important. The stuff presented in this museum is blatantly wrong, and ridiculous, and is a menace to the public understanding and enlightenment even without government support (though, I would not be surprised if the museum has not benefited at least indirectly from the tax breaks our government is too happy to give religious institutions.) The only educational value it has to serve as a case-in-point as to how excessive religious faith can obliterate any trace of rationality in an otherwise intelligent individual.

Also, some schools (hopefully only private/religious schools) are undoubtedly planning field trips to this museum (an earlier article I read noted the parking lot which was designed to comfortably accommodate school buses). It's bad enough that parents and churches poison impressionable, helpless children's minds with this garbage, but now they'll have a multi-million dollar, Universal Studios caliber set of displays and presentations to even more thoroughly inculcate kids to this backwards, pre-medieval nonsense.

Just wanted to say a few things before you get modded down into non-existence.

Evolution isn't any more "non-science" than astro-physics is non-science. Sure, it's pretty hard to set up an experiment to test evolution. But the same can be said for most of what goes on in space. That hasn't kept science out. Unfortunately, it does mean that the scatter is a little larger and research takes longer. But research still does happen because predictions can be made and then you wait and see if the observations match up.

Evolution is falsifiable. If we actually wanted to run experiments we could. It might take a few hundred million years, but we could do it. Creation, on the other hand, is not falsifiable. But that won't stop those with blinders on from claiming they are similarly situated.

No, it is very easy to set up an experiment. I do it all the time when I reuse yeast on many consecutive brewing sessions. Yeast rapidly evolves due to it's simple nature, and six generations is enough to change it's behavior. This results in a very different beer that can change a nice cream ale into a poor chimay. The thing that is hard is understanding what is happening, not finding the examples of it in your daily life.

Evolution is a science. Why is it a science? Because it follows the scientific method. There is evidence and rules what can be treated as evidence. When the evidence no longer fits the model the model will be changed to fit the evidence. An this goes on and on until the evidence and the model fit together like a fine wine and cheese.

Creationism on the other hand cannot follow the scientific method. For one thing there is only one theory and that theory can never be modified. Where on the other hand the theory of evolution has changed in the last 150 years since is formulation. Creationism is just the opposite of science. Since you can't change the theory you have to change the evidence. You can't do that in science. You have to go by what the evidence says.

You can run an experiment on evolution in a matter of hours, using viruses or bacteria.

This just shows how evil and destructive the theistic movement is -- they've already brainwashed society into thinking that evolution is an untested theory. It HAS been tested -- undergrad students (and even high school students) routinely run experiments in which they allow various traits to evolve in micro-organisms. There are thousands of examples of species that have evolved in the last century, many of them extremely novel. Novel ecosystems have developed. Entirely new metabolic pathways have appeared -- I somehow doubt that titanium-oxidizing bacteria, nylon-oxidizing bacteria, or fungi that subsist on high levels of ionizing radiation, developed before Human were around to provide pure titanium, nylon, or Chernobyl-level nuclear disasters.

Creationism is falsifiable. The Genesis creation story makes some very specific claims about the way everything was created which should have predictable effects on the fossil record.

For instance, all of the animals were made on the same day according to Genesis. This means that we should see fossil cows at every level of the geological column. Do we? No. Creationism is not only falsifiable, it is falsified.

Unless you researched everything yourself, then there is belief. Who do you trust?

Creationism and Evolution have one thing in common - a big stack of paper that tells what each is. But that's where it ends.

Creationism says "This stack of papers states the absolute proof and if you challenge it you are a heretic who will burn in hell."

Evolution(ism) says "These papers say the way we think things are based on the information we've found so far. If you can refute the evidence and findings in them, please do so, and add your evidence and findings to the stack of papers."

One requires blind belief in "information" that cannot be examined or refuted. The other requires no belief and encourages examination and refutation.

several groups (both religious and secular) will be protesting. come join us!

Are you kidding? This museum is doing us a tremendous favor. If anything, we should send them money.

The intelligent design movement managed to make creationism look vaguely scientific. Its proponents had academic degrees and wrote books; Behe is actually a biochemist. They didn't make patently absurd claims about world being 6000 years old, they didn't use the Bible as a primary source, and they didn't directly refer to God and Jesus in every third sentence. They didn't do science, but they did a decent job of pretending to, and made creationism look almost respectable.

But if you want to see creationism made to look ridiculously unsophisticated and ignorant again, nobody could do a better job than this museum. Apatosaurus living with Adam and Eve? Dinosaurs on Noah's Ark? If you were trying to parody creationism, or create a strawman of all the worst creationist arguments, you couldn't do a better job. And the intelligent design guys- Behe and Dembski- will suddenly find that when they're arguing for creationism, people will be asking them if they believe that Jesus rode a Velociraptor.

So I say, put the Genesis account on display, in all its glory, and let people see it. I think most people will leave thinking exactly what they thought when they came in: evangelicals will leave still knowing that every word in the Bible is true, people looking for a laugh will emerge thinking that while science doesn't have all the answers, it's a lot better than a bunch of ancient myths, and kids- well, I say, let them see dinosaurs and men living alongside each other. Because while adults like to be told what they already know, kids like to ask questions, and I think those dioramas will get them asking a lot of questions.

The human mind only knows what it experiences (including the experience of receiving communication from others in any form). The accuracy of said experiences, as well as the soundness of the interpretation, is always questionable.

Some people are very uncomfortable with uncertainty. They desperately crave a solid and unquestionable source for correct knowledge. So, in the absence of such a source, the mind will play games with itself to create one. Hence the popular religious trend of interpreting mythology as if it were history.

It is true that scientific knowledge is not rock-solid. It is vulnerable to inaccuracy and just as questionable as any other kind of knowledge. So, the religious believers are correct in pointing this out. However, there is a very important difference of methodology at work. The scientific process is one of perpetual questioning and re-examination of fact, and hence of perpetual refinement of accuracy. The religious process utterly lacks this element, and as such it has no demonstrable means of approaching any kind of practical validity. That, however, does not prevent people from convincing themselves that their religion of choice is correct and unquestionable, and that any and all evidence to the contrary must be in error.

So long as this thought process is confined to the realm of private institutions (museums, churches, clubs, and what have you), I am fine with it. Just don't go infecting public education with your myths.

I'm attaching this as a reply to the first post in the hopes that it will be seen by people entering the thread and thus head off some inevitable posts. Creationists, this is addressed to you.

Here goes:

The word "theory" is not synonymous with the word "hypothesis" in science.

Please, please try to remember this when you instinctively want to cry "but it's only a theory!" when talking about evolutionary theory. As has doubtless been explained to you ad nauseum by the scientifically-inclined, Theory is a designator that must be earned and requires a reasonable body of supporting evidence. So while indeed the colloquial allows the use of "I have a theory" to mean a hypothesis, this is not correct in science.

Make whatever other arguments you will, but please stop making this elementary mistake.
cheers.

I've noticed that many slashdot articles about evolution seem to attract a sizeable number of creationists. Because of this, I've decided to address the serious (i.e. non-trolling) creationists that frequent slashdot in the hope that I can prevent you from making the same easily avoided mistakes that make so many of your brethren sound like ignorant cretins. Here are some common arguments that creationists use, and why I think that you shouldn't use them... unless of course you want to be ridiculed. Note: this is by no means a comprehensive list.

(1) "Evolution is just a THEORY"

This is the most common (and the most disappointing) creationist argument I hear on a regular basis. While it's true that evolution is a theory, this statement is made in an attempt to cast doubt on evolution by implying that evolution is akin to a wild guess that scientists came up with after a night of heavy drinking. Newsflash: it's not going to work. Most educated people understand that you're confusing the word "theory" (which means an explanation or model that is capable of predicting future events) with the word "hypothesis" (which means an educated guess). Calling evolution a "theory" isn't an insult. For the millionth time, I will repeat this: gravity is also "just" a theory (for example, google the "General Theory of Relativity"). I might even add that most scientists would consider evolution to be a better-supported theory than gravity, because of the fact that gravity cannot (currently) be quantized, despite decades of attempts. If you want to debate evolution, fine- but don't play these childish word games.

(2) "But evolution has never been observed!"

Most creationists, faced with the mind-numbingly obvious fact that viruses and other creatures (like those famous moths) evolve right in front of our eyes, make a distinction between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Micro-evolution is "proven", they say, because it only represents a change in allele frequency within a species. Macro-evolution, defined as change from one species to another (aka "speciation"), is more of a problem for creationists. They often insist that speciation has never been observed outside of laboratory experiments. This is blatantly false. Many examples of speciation have been observed in the wild- for example check out this large list of peer-reviewed journal articles here [talkorigins.org] and also here [talkorigins.org].

The next step that creationists take in response to this rebuttal is to claim that speciation proves nothing- only a change from one kind of organism to another will prove evolution. What's a "kind", you might ask? No one knows. Creationists will give vague examples, such as saying that a dog is a different kind of animal than a whale, but a rigid definition has never (to my knowledge) been offered or universally accepted by the major creationist organizations. It's just a convenient goal post which keeps getting pushed back every time new evidence is found. The fact is, speciation is rather easy to observe in organisms which breed relatively quickly. Observing the creation of, say, a new phylum or order could take many millennia. Unfortunately, human civilization hasn't been around that long. Plus, standard biological nomenclature isn't based on evolutionary criteria, so it isn't clear to me that equating a "kind" with a phylum or order is meaningful in this context.

Don't try to pretend that "Intelligent Design" is somehow different than creationism. Especially don't try to pretend that it's a scientific theory. Seriously. No one's buying it. "Intelligent Design" is a disguise- a secular-sounding term thrown over religious creationism to try to smuggle it into a state-funded science class

I've not really considered that before, but I'm not really sure I'd want to give a lecture like this in public. From what I've seen, public debates on evolution are usually failures for rationalists. There are several reasons:

(1) Most scientists are accustomed to honest, civilized debate. Scientific conferences are full of disagreements and arguments, make no mistake about that. But (almost) all the participants are aiming to understand the universe better, to examine their assumptions and use experimental evidence and logic to figure out whether or not they need to change their assumptions or ideas. They might attack a speaker's ideas if they believe that a mistake is being made, but there's nothing very personal at stake. So once proven wrong, they admit it (usually politely if you're lucky). Most creationists, on the other hand, are defending the One True Religion. They already know The Truth, and simply pick and choose arguments from creationist websites to attempt to defend that Truth. This kind of backwards reasoning (arrive at conclusion first, find supporting facts later) is so alien to scientists that they simply can't handle it. I'm not sure I could, for that matter.

(2) Creationists often make statements like "Evolution can't produce new information in a genome" or "We don't know how old the earth is because carbon dating isn't useful on large timescales and we don't know the initial amounts of isotopes and polonium halos disprove old ages anyway". Answering each one of these statements would require hours of boring, dry lecturing- something that simply isn't going to happen. And the problem is that creationists don't just make one of these statements, they make DOZENS of them. Answering this kind of deluge of mis-information in such a way that it can be intelligible to the average person would take an unbelievably long amount of time. As such, even answering questions from the crowd can be a tricky business. How do you explain isochronology and radioactive dating methods in 2 minutes to a young earth creationist? I can barely explain it to a fellow scientist in less than 15 minutes. Now imagine someone standing up and asking two or three of these questions in rapid fire mode, and ridiculing you for not having a snappy answer. This kind of public failure would not look good.

(3) Creationists are usually much better at the fine art of crowd manipulation, whether they're participating in a debate or simply asking an "impromptu" question from the audience. I'm finishing up my PhD now, and I've taught some pretty big classes, but never had to worry about anything like this. I'd probably be slaughtered if I tried...

I'm not completely knocking the idea, it's just that I can easily see it becoming ugly.

I did take some time to read that document, and I also took some time to look into its author. To quote this page [don-lindsay-archive.org]:

Rev. Wells decided in 1976 to "devote my life to destroying Darwinism" since it is incompatible with the beliefs of the Unification Church (the "Moonies"). He subsequently earned two Ph.D.'s (in theology and in biology) as a preparation for battle. Wells has indicated elsewhere that he is an "old-earth" creationist. He agrees that speciation has happened, but disputes common descent, and wants an ongoing role for God.

Please read some of the reviews and rebuttals of of Reverend Wells other book, and see for yourself how its possible for someone to have a PhD in biology and yet still not understand how science works. I'm not a biologist, so I won't attempt to rebut the page you linked to - but you owe us all the favor of continuing to research what he writes, if you're going to cite it as cannon.

Why do scientists such as yourself disparage supernatural proposals as though they were false, when you are yourself not in honest pursuit of truth, but of credible naturalistic explanations?

That is pretty much a semantic argument. There really is no difference between the natural and the supernatural. When we describe something as "natural", it is because we can explain it already. When we describe something as "supernatural", it is because we cannot explain it yet. Lightning was once supernatural. As soon as we have a working theory for something, it becomes "naturalistic".

Science does not ignore "supernatural" occurances. They are routinely dismissed because they are usually found to be simple misconceptions, but the options are always on the table. Any decent scientist will tell you that we know that we dont know everything yet.

If God was shown to exist, he would be a very natural being. He would just have natural laws that are completely unknown to us, just as electromagnetism was unknown to us 1000 years ago. The reason why God's existance is dismissed is not simply because he is deemed to be supernatural, but because there is no reason to believe that he does exist.

Not a single scientific experiment that I am aware of has ever pointed to the existance of any god that has ever been worshiped by man. Quite the opposite in fact. An almost infinite amount of natural phenomena that have at one time been attributed to a godlike being have been explained with "natural" laws.

We basically have two choices:1) Almost every god that has ever been worshiped in the history of mankind is false, but the One God worhiped by a few similar religions today is real.OR2) ALL relgions that provide no tangible and reasonable proof are false.

I am sure that the Romans thought the same thing that we do today. I am sure that they laughed at the idea of the old babylonian gods actually existing. Just like our descendants a thousand years from now will probably be laughing at our current religious beliefs.

Science is not being close minded by not listening to religious arguments. Science has listened, but has found nothing worth continued listening. The only reason that it is even a topic of discussion is because of how many people still believe in organized religion. Illiteracy is something that has only recently been almost eliminated in the civilized world. Our civilization's next step of enlightenment is to rid ourselves of religion, but it will take a while. Until then we will still have discussions that confuse the natural and supernatural, and confuse scientific conviction with religious conviction.

You know the world is 12,000 years old and dinosaurs existed, they existed in that time, you'd think it would have been mentioned in the fucking Bible at some point.

"And lo Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus... with a splinter in his paw. And O the disciples did run a shriekin': 'What a big fucking lizard, Lord!' But Jesus was unafraid and he took the splinter from the brontosaurus's paw and the big lizard became his friend.

"And Jesus sent him to Scotland where he lived in a loch for O so many years inviting thousands of American tourists to bring their fat fucking families and their fat dollar bills.

"And oh Scotland did praise the Lord. Thank you Lord, thank you Lord. Thank you Lord."

It's pretty well established that the large flying dinosaurs were long extinct before the dawn of human beings; remember it took a long time since the extinction of dinosaurs before anything even remotely resembling homonids started appearing.

What's more likely is that tales of dragons grew out of another animal--namely pre-existing reptiles, snakes and crocodilians. All primates have an innate, instinctual fear of snakes--in fact it's been argued that primate eyes evolved the way they did because of snakes. (Do a google search on "primate evolution snakes"--there's some interesting stuff to be read) As for fear of the crocodilians, that's a no-brainer--they're big, hungry, and can tear off your leg. While I don't know about western dragons, I read an article several years ago that argued quite well that stories of Chinese dragons grew out of crocodiles.

But it makes sense--you want to think up a scary animal, make a big honking version of an animal that people are already instinctually afraid of--snakes. And make 'em fly too for good measure.

Any God that cares if you worshipped him doesn't deserve the position.

Bravo! I find it inconceivable that a being as omniscient and all-knowing as a "god" would be so petty as to consider one set of dogmatic beliefs to be right or wrong. It would judge people (if it chooses to judge them at all) by their actions and the intentions behind them, not details of which creation story they chose to believe in. In fact, I say such a god would see right through the people who treated others like crap but went to church every sunday because they thought that's what is necessary for salvation. And this is one of the reasons I myself am not religious. I see no reason to seek validation by any being who would actually care whether I attend church or not.

I really can't believe this debate (and the same "yeah, me too!") still comes up and gets modded insightful all the time. The point is not that Christianity's God wants you to worship him through his own insecurity, but that the bible says that the natural state for humans is to worship him -- that humans are happiest when they do so.

Unless, of course, said deity saw that, if done correctly, attending regular worship services could help people to be nicer to each other--and said deity also knew that it would only do that if those worship services were teaching certain specific bits of information. Furthermore, if the deity was really smart, said deity might also want people to know about its true nature before it revealed itself to them. So, there just might be a reason to be religious after all.

Oh, and perhaps there are some other reasons for going to church that you just haven't thought of. One of the neat things about postulating an omniscient being is that it is smarter than you are.

"The other catastrophe, in the museum's view, is of more recent vintage: the abandonment of the Bible by church figures who began to treat the story of creation as if it were merely metaphorical, and by Enlightenment philosophers, who chipped away at biblical authority"

The catholic church is NOT mainstream Christian thought. The catholic church on many occasions killed anyone who opposed them, their teachings are not Christian and aren't considered so by anyone other than themselves.

You do realize that the vast majority of Christians outside the USA are Catholic, right? They're not exactly some obscure sect of Christianity. Protestantism is, by any reasonable definition of "mainstream", NOT mainstream Christian except in the USA and a few other places.

The Catholic church isn't maintream? What are you smoking? I want some of that.

The Catholic church is the foundation of Christianity. All other Christian churches split off from the Catholic church, mostly for political reasons. The schisms between protestant denominations is far greater than the differences between some protestant churches and the Holy Mother Church. The difference between the Episcopal Church and the Catholic Church pales compared to the huge schism between the Christian Church and

He made us capable of making moral choices, but we're not punished for being able to sin--we're punished for sin.

What sin? She ate a fruit when it was offered to her, by a being that God _allowed_ into the Garden. Yes, she was told not to eat the fruit, but was never told why or what the consequences were, despite God being omniscient enough to know he had created man with curiosity.

Leaving completely ignorant and unsophisticated children alone with the greatest predator in the universe does not seem like a wise parenting decision.

I already have troubles with another part of the Genesis. Since God is omniscient and transcends space and time, he must have known that Adam and Eve will eat from the forbidden fruit of knowledge. Why did he punish them for something he must have known all along? Why did he let it happen first of all? Why did he put the trees into the garden of Eden, it would have been in his power (remember, omnipotent) to put them somewhere else so they could not reach it.

Personally, I think God framed the humans. And such a God I should worship? I'd rather say, he wanted to kick the nudists out and needed some reason. But then I wonder, what reason would God need to do what he pleases? Who does he have to report to?

Here is another example. Let's assume I am programming my new robotic dog. I explicitly code a statement that says to not bark. Then I run the code. The dog runs around and then barks. What options do I have now?

Throw the dog out of the window, declare that it knowingly offended and denied me, and make a law that all dogs of this type must be manufactured with intentionally built-in defects, from now and forever, as a punishment for the sin of this specific d

This hits the same nail as the question "Can God create a stone so heavy that he himself can't lift it?" And there is even an answer to both, this and your question, that does not contracdict the omni- qualities of God.Since God is a singular entity (at least in monotheistic religions), there cannot be two. So if God created an identical clone of himself, both clones would immediately become one again, since both of them would be omnipresent, thus everywhere, taking up the same metaphysical "room" and becom

It is an interesting question, and one that has been asked before...I refer to things that could be based upon the Bible (I could quote references if desired). Of course if you throw out bits and pieces, it will become a tad difficult to argue.

Men (and women) were made in God's image. Mankind was created with knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. And a free will, even as God Himself. All creation was good, as God had said. Mankind was also perfectly good. So, God presented the choice, which was not a malicious one. One tree, the "Knowledge of Good and Evil", was where Adam and Eve could (as the tree is self-described) know about evil as well as good. They had perfectly good trees throughout that garden to eat from, and thus the choice was not difficult really. Should they listen to the God they walked with every day? Or trust someone or something else...

So, why would God, who knows all, allow this possibility? Because He wanted mankind to freely serve Him. Robots can be trained, people or animals can be "beaten into submission", but that is not the willing and free service of the Creator by the creature. And Luke's geneology refers to Adam as God's son, as he was created in God's image. So, as a parent, would you force your kid to always listen and totally protect them from every having any possibility of disobedience? Wouldn't that make you a tyrant?

But why would God allow this, especially as a Father who knew His children would rebel in such a way? Because He had a plan for this that would bring even more glory to Himself (no matter if His children remained in their sin or returned to His loving arms), as well as bringing greater glory to the creatures who repent and return to Him than even if they never fell.

God has chosen to have creatures made in His image (mankind) serve Him freely and willingly and perfectly. It was done before the fall, and can be done only in heaven for those who return to His loving arms and embrace His son Jesus Christ.

I can't say that people naturally will like this concept of God much, who designs mankind in His image in order to serve Him freely and joyfully. People also hate the concept that those who do not do so but rebel against His fatherly care realize the miserable consequences here (to some degree) and in the afterlife.

I guess if you've ever been a parent, and believe you should have some authority in molding your child in a moral and right way, you will understand a little what God the Father is like. If you have been a parent, and see the seeds of rebellion being sown and your good counsel being openly flaunted, you will realize in a very small way what it felt like to God. Some may wish their children to turn into little robots who always say "Yes sir" and "No sir" to their demands, and are never given the freedom to choose any wrong thing, and never are harmed or experience any negative consequences for anything. But then, to expect a spontaneous and free declaration of love from those children is impossible...

So God wants us to choose. Him or not him. Freely. There is no force involved, he wants us to choose his path, of course, but he would rather see us choose the wrong path than force us on the right one.

Hey now, you neglect the possibility that disobeying was the perfect thing to do, and hence god is punishing humans for behaving perfectly. Which leads to the simple logical conclusion that God is evil.

If God created Adam and Eve in His own image, and God is perfect or infallible, so too would Adam and Eve have been. Direct contradiction if you accept that interpretation.

If "free will" is what God has, and it is what He gave Adam and Eve, then that is certainly in His own image. However, humans have curiosity and must experiment to satisfy it, and God does not (based on the assumption that He already knows anything that He might possibly be curious about), so God clearly denied us a tool we needed to be safe (it was supposedly safe in the garden, right?) Put differently, exactly why were Knowledge and Life suppsed to be mutually exclusive?

For that matter, why would would God create such a temptation in the first place? What purpose does it serve? How was its creation essential to the creation of everything else? I'm pretty sure I haven't seen any trees of knowledge (or life) lately, so they can't be terribly important elements of the world. If nothing else, it clearly falls under the category of an attractive nuisance.

Let us not forget the God also supposedly created the snake (and apparently made it either evil or possessed of free will and a twisted sense of humor... not to mention speech) let it loose in his childrens' paradise! Nowhere does it state that the snake should have been created good (although one might infer that from the fact that its creator was supposedly the essence of goodliness) but what an utter lack of morality would be required to put such a thing in the garden where your children play! Thus God is either evil or both irresponsible and uncaring.

Almost at the end, the explanation most directly relevent:If God created Adam and Eve, then they were His children and His responsibility. It was His duty to teach them, to guide them, to nurture them, to comfort them, to correct them when they made mistakes, and to keep them safe from their own ignorance. Creating beings with free will, whether by divine powers or natural conception, makes you responsible for those who are created. If they screw up their lives because you left them in an environment with dangerous elements that your children have no experience in dealing with, then it is your fault. Heck, from the perspective of Adam and Eve, the snake was probably a perfectly legitimate source of guidance; nobody had told them it wasn't!

Finally, if God didn't want humans to be little automata, but denied us education, didn't He pretty much just make a pair of amusing little pets? At best, Adam and Eve were sentient monkeys in a zoo, placed there without having ever known their parents and watched by an uncaring master through semi-silvered glass. At worst, they essentially WERE automata, except they lacked a pre-defined sequence of instructions. Robots without any programming except curiosity, that had once been given a command but that had been designed to act with a certain degree of randomness. If that's your idea of creating beings with free will, I sure as hell hope you aren't involved in any major AI projects.

In any case, if Adam and Eve existed, then they had pretty much the worst growing up experience possible. They were given curiosity but were kept ignorant, provided with dangerous temptations, and given no guides save for malicious entities that they had never even been warned against. When the urge to satisfy that curiosity (at the urging of a creature made by their same creator and dwelling in their own safe garden) became too great, they were irrevocably changed, cast out from paradise, and defamed as the originators of sin for the rest of eternity. At THIS point, their all-powerful 'parent' offers no comfort or assistance, but decides that NOW He would put protection on the one thing that might, possibly, have reversed the change done to them.

You are arguing that this deity loves us, and that we should worship Him? The average everyday, non-omniceint, flawed-in-various-ways father and mother that most of us had growing up is far more worthy, in my opinion (not that I worship anybody, but maybe I'm just a bit too cynical).

The logic and reasoning that points to the earth not being 4000 years old, and the logic and reasoning that points to evolution being what actually happened, also allow us to see through the charade that is christianity though. Now, if you were a deist, I could amost accept that, but christianity is just a bunch of made up stories. At least the fundies take their holy book by it's word. If you pick and choose from the Bible, you're demonstrating that you yourself have a much better sense of morals than the god you worship. If you've ditched the nasty bits of the Bible already, why not go the whole distance and ditch the rest. You know you want to!

I normally don't respond to ACs, but here goes:
In its broadest sense, a fundamentalist is someone who believes that unvarying principles must apply to all people or every situation, in this case, the Bible as absolute truth. So, if someone believes every word of the Bible is absolute truth and nothing is metaphorical, simplified in terms that the people of the time would understand, and was completely accurate in its translation from language to language, then that would qualify them as a fundamentalist in my mind. In general, there is nothing wrong with that. I see no problem with believing what you believe. It's when you force that belief on other people that causes problems. Open discussion of beliefs on the other hand, is good for everyone involved.
Now, what do I believe? I am a Christian, but I believe there is one problem with the Bible: it was physically written be humans. This means two primary things to me:

It could only be written in terms that the person writing it could understand. This could lead to simplification of concepts. For example, in the story of creation, seven days may not necessarily equate to seven 24-hour periods. It could just mean seven stages, where each stage could take years, centuries, millenniums, etc.

Because humans are flawed, some of those who physically wrote the Bible may have injected their views of the world into it. It then becomes a problem to decipher what may have been written by a human voice and not God's. This can only be done through self reflection which will be different for each person.

This is just what I believe and I have no expectations of other people to accept or adhere to this belief. This is where I depart from fundamentalists.

Very well said.
Furthermore, the arguments presented in the Bible are not logical arguments, which would lose their force if combined with shoddy reasoning. The Bible is a series of stories that advocate particular moral choices, and seek to make those moral choices attractive. If you find those moral choices attractive, it doesn't matter that the imperative to do them doesn't come coherently from the text, because the imperative to do them comes from yourself, and the Bible is only a way to encourage yourself to follow them, inspiration rather than command. Some may find the Bible inspiring enough to change their actions and principles to coincide with it, but they're not being convinced by any sort of logic--they're being convinced by the emotional attractiveness of the Bible's principles.
That's what religion is--a set of explanations of the world and moral principles that derive their force by making us feel good when we follow them. It's not necessary to accept every part of your chosen religion to get the benefit of it--you just have to like it enough to be inspired to act accordingly.
Clearly the Creationist Museum operators have taken a very different part of Christianity to heart than Conigs has.

In general, there is nothing wrong with that. I see no problem with believing what you believe. It's when you force that belief on other people that causes problems.

I think the main problem is that if you are a fundamentalist, then that neccesitates that you either try to force those beliefs onto others, or kill all nonbelievers. If you are absolutely certain that your belief system is correct, and inherent in your belief system is that all other belief systems are evil, then it follows that you want everyone to have your belief system. At that point things like secular government and religious tolerance just dissapear. How can you state that the Bible is the direct infallible word of God, and in the same breath say that we aren't going to use this in government, and we are OK with the fact others don't believe what God is saying?

Frostalicious remarked So basically you believe in the literal truth of the Bible...I don't think you know me well enough to really know what I believe. For the record, however, I hold that parts of the Bible are literal, parts are metaphor, parts are allegory. I might even allow that parts are fiction, i.e. a story used to communicate some truth about God and/or man.

So are missionaries behaving improperly?Depends on their behavior. But to the question I think you're asking, all Christians are commanded

It could only be written in terms that the person writing it could understand. This could lead to simplification of concepts. For example, in the story of creation, seven days may not necessarily equate to seven 24-hour periods. It could just mean seven stages, where each stage could take years, centuries, millenniums, etc.

You know, even 4000 years ago, people did understand the concept of periods of time longer than a day.

Another thing is leading fundamantalists beleive the book is absolute but don't bother to learn the languages it was written in to discuss what it says like the Biblical scholars of other groups have been doing for centuries. Even worse - they are actively anti-intellectual, which is really what the creation vs evolution thing is about and why it's really a US only thing. It isn't the main issue that is just how it manifests there.

Yeah, I actually encountered a guy like this - He said that the bible was infallible, I asked him about translation errors, and he said even the translation was perfect - so I asked which translation he read. He didn't even know that there are dozens of translations into english alone. He couldn't even name which one it was. But it was still infallible - written by god, Yessir.

We have lots of cave drawings of man with impressive animals like wooly mamoths and the like. So why are there not cave drawings of man with really impressive animals like the dinasaurs. I mean I I was impressed enought to paint the large elephant like creature you would think that a 20' high meat eating moster would at least reate a few pictures.

In there examples the closest thing to a cave drawing was only mineral stains on rock. The rest were 'modern' illistrations of accepted legends of the time. And as to the foot prints, a walking foot print does not look like any of those depicted.

Ken Ham (President of Answers in Genesis, sponsor of the museum) would be amusing to watch if he wasn't so scary. There was a segment in the documentary "Friends of God" which showed Ken speaking to a group of children [youtube.com] about dinosaurs and evolution. His logical argument to the children was that since scientists weren't around 4,000 years ago but god was then we have to believe god and not the scientists.

"Intelligent Design" groups have been running tours through legitimate museums, providing their own narrative in order to dispute the information provided by the museum displays. Maybe after this museum opens some atheist tour group so do the same thing...take tours through Ken's "museum" and provide scientific narrative to dispute his biblical nonsense.

Maybe after this museum opens some atheist tour group so do the same thing...take tours through Ken's "museum" and provide scientific narrative to dispute his biblical nonsense.

Intelligent Design groups get way with their propaganda because the museums believe in free speech, and allow them to have their say. Do you really think that these fundamentalists will allow pro-evolution groups to spread their propaganda in the Creationist Museum? To them, free speech only applies when it's in their favor, not their opponents.

The process of observing the world and drawing a logical set of self consistent conclusions. All sciences, especially the soft sciences, have bias, or systematic error, We will tend the local world view on situations that far removed in time or space. Such errors can be corrected by future research and a more diversified group of scientists. There is no attack on faith, as faith is what we believe, not what we use when we need to model a natural process.

This museum, while attempting to provide a self consistent set of conclusions, fails to limit itself to observable and verifiable fact. In fact I feel it mocks Christianity by further limiting the power of the creator. Limiting such power has always been popular in the sinful human population that wishes to transfer power from the creator to itself. Just look at catholicism and the belief that certain religious leaders can speak for the almighty. For example, when I was growing up it was quite a popular belief that the creator put fossils and likes on earth as a test of fate. Those that continue to believe the bible even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary are those with sufficient faith to be saved. Now these sinful humans are trying to rewrite the bible and limit the power of the almighty by saying that dinosaurs existed and the grand canyon and the fossils were caused by the flood. You know, if the creator wanted a grand canyon, or fossils, or dinosaurs, or floods, or whatever, there is nothing to stop the desire becoming a reality, no matter what greedy and corrupt humans have to say.

I wonder if the future will see this museum as an artifact of a time in Christianity when the leaders were more concerned with wealth and personal power than serving the almighty. If, perhaps, someone like Martin Luther will emerge to blog 123 ways that the christian church is corrupt, and call for a post-christian movement.

It always amazes how these people underestimate the scale and beauty of "god"'s creation by so many orders of magnitude. Apparently their god would not have been subtle enough to make life which could adapt to a changing world? There is nothing in any science which confirms or denies god's existence. Imagine if they had won over the astronomers, we would have been stuck with a tiny god who could only manage one little planet, and one star. Now we know about the vast beauty of the stars and galaxies spread across the sky. Surely if you are going to believe in a creator, this sort of knowledge can only increase your respect for it?
There I go again, trying to apply reason to religion. But why doesn't it ever work?

OK, so man and dinosaurs lived together. That must mean then, that all the Biblical hero's were pansies. I mean all they did was kill few wolves (David) and enter a Lions den (Daniel) . If they were real hero's why did they not slay one of the T-Rexes that were wondering around eating everything in sight or enter a den of hungry Velosoraptors. Then they would have been real hero's.

...is a recognition from both sides that evolution is not in opposition to the bible or Christianity. Many (most?) Christians know this already, but there are a few (like the folks that made this museum) who haven't figured it out yet. There are also many non-Christian evolutionists who think that evolution is counter to Christianity. I was raised a Christian, though I am no longer one, but I don't see that evolution contradicts the bible.

The bible is full of events natural events that science has gone on to explain but which we don't fret about. Every time someone falls to the ground they were being pulled by a magical force which science later called "gravity". Does knowing the way in which gravity works, and the ability to predict its effects contradict the bible? No: people assume that God created gravity and that is the method by which he keeps people stuck to the Earth and the planets and stars in rotation. What about disease? When it was discovered that bacteria and viruses cause disease, and that we could control the effects to a large degree, was the bible's absence in describing the physical mechanism of disease a sudden point of contention? No.

So why is it that natural selection, an obvious, elegant, and indeed predictive theory (see drug resistant pests) seen as something else? Why can't natural selection be the mechanism by which God brought forth first the plants, then the animals, and then man, as described in Genisis?

He does not need to be a "God of the Gaps" filling in only that which we don't know. He can be God the architect, designer of all that which we do know, and also that which we have yet to discover.

Personally, I don't believe in God, but most of my family does. I am continually surprised that they struggle so hard with evolution.

Believing in evolution means you toss out large chunks of the bible, at least with the old testament. In particular, the acceptance of "Deep Time", required for evolution and geology, tosses away the idea that a diety created Earth only a few thousand years ago, put humans on it fully formed in a garden, then kicked them out into the wide word.Accepting evolution and other modern scientific viewpoints increasingly forces you to treat the Bible as a set of parables, not the literal word of God. And if it's j

I weep for America when, in otherwise legitimate media, the articles actually approach a topic from a superstitious angle: "... For the believer, it seems, this museum provides a kind of relief: Finally the world is being shown as it really is, without the distortions of secularism and natural selection."
I'm not an American, but from what I have read of NYT's articles, I got the idea they was the kind of newspaper that would not stoop as low as to lend any credibility to superstition.

The question of creationism has always puzzled me. When I was younger I believed in it whole heartedly. Now that I'm older I have had to rethink my beliefs which I think everyone should do regardless of what you believe, you should always re-evaluate everything. But I don't think that the percentage of people that believe in Creationism are going to be compelled by a museum. I mean personal beliefs usually have some kind of variation between others (different religions and your own ideas), but I guess if you're in an organized religion they might be quite similar. I just don't think you can have a museum on Creationism, I think peoples efforts would be better spent on a museum of Religion. This would be more beneficial to everyone knowing the history of theirs and others beliefs. Knowing what is actually true about someone else's religion could help them to understand others as well.

What I purpose is a place where you can go and be educated on every belief. I myself think that atheism requires just as much faith as a person who believes in god. Who are you to know for a fact that something intelligent didn't create everything, something had to come from somewhere no one knows so why it is that it has to be nothing. Frankly I haven't seen much come from nothing I haven't seen any proof of that so I don't know why people think that it takes less faith to believe that there is no god than it does to believe that there is. Frankly you will never convince someone who has a strong faith to switch in either direction. That is why I think that it fits in as well, I'm sure that there are a lot of people on Slashdot that will disagree with me. I've met quite a few in my travels and at work when the subject comes up. But I think that we can all agree that people generally need to make the decision themselves, be it one way or another.

Back on topic I think it would be better to give a whole history of different beliefs such as Greek/roman gods, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Atheism, and much much more. I think it would be more educational for people and help them with clarity on their own beliefs. I guess when I was younger I was exposed to all the differing views on everything so that I could make a more educated guess at the time in what I believe. Not that it would help much because I always wonder as I think most of you must.

Of course this is all just my opinion, I'm pretty sure someone will disagree or say it wouldn't work or that it's no different than what is proposed. I just think it would be a good idea in my own head.

The Bible tells a rich history of God with man. Why does man have to make up stories because there were certain details left out? I don't take sides with the young earth or ye old universe theory, but it bothers me when someone thinks they're so right they have to do something like this. It's almost as bad as bickering between denominations. Anyway, I know God is real, but that doesn't mean I know everything, and odds are neither does this guy.

A good book by Richard Dawkins who wrote 'The Selfish Gene'. Here's a summary:

Richard Dawkins on why religion sticks: "There is no such thing as a Muslim Child. There is a child of Muslim Parents. There is no such thing as a Christian Child. There is a child of Christian Parents.

My specific hypothesis is about children. More than any other species, we survive by the accumulated experience of previousgenerations, and that experience needs to be passed on to children for their protection and well-being. Theoretically, children might learn from personal experience not to go too near a cliff edge, not to eat untried red berries, not to swim in crocodile-infested waters. But, to say the least, there will be a selective advantage to child brains that possess the rule of thumb: believe, without question, whatever your grown-ups tell you. Obey your parents; obey the tribal elders, especially when they adopt a solemn, minatory tone. Trust your elders without question. This is a generally valuable rule for a child. But, as with the moths, it can go wrong.

Natural selection builds child brains with a tendency to believe whatever their parents and tribal elders tell them.Such trusting obedience is valuable for survival: the analogue of steering by the moon for a moth. But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility. The inevitable by-product is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses.

Sociologists studying British children have found that only about one in twelve break away from their parents' religious beliefs."

Remember the old consistency thing. People are loathe to change their mind:

"It would be a severe disadvantage, for example, when hunting or making tools, to keep changing one's mind, so under some circumstances, it is better to persist in an irrational belief than to vacillate, even if new evidence or ratiocination favors a change."

Douglas Adams: "Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, 'Here is an idea or a notion that you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why not? - because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'I respect that'.

Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows - but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe ... no, that's holy? ... We are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's very interesting howmuch of a furore Richard creates when he does it!

Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn't be."

Andrew Mueller: "Pledging yourself to any particular religion 'is no more or less weird than choosing to believe that the world is rhombus-shaped, and borne through the cosmos in the pincers of two enormous green lobsters called Esmerelda and Keith'."

Sam Harris: "We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common we call them 'religious'; otherwise, they are likely to be called 'mad', 'psychotic' or 'delusional' . . . Clearly there is sanity in numbers."

Richard Dawkins: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodth

What I don't get is, why do creationists have such an obvious hatred for science, and yet they have a compulsion to explain their own beliefs using scientific-sounding words and scientific-looking venues?

That's what's so absurd about this whole thing. Nearly everything in that museum is owed to real science. From the depictions of ancient creatures and people, to the actual robotics and materials used in their construction.

You can't pick and choose which parts of science you like, and which parts of s

Sure, it consists of laws (i.e., observations), hypotheses, theories, as well as methods that allow us to test theories against observations. The theory of evolution invokes the law of natural selection, and has withstood the scientific method quite well. Is there something else you have in mind for what science consists of?

Please, please, be sure to understand that laws are not "above" theories. If anything, they are beneath theories in that they are o

Okay, here's one of Hovind's arguments against the Pangea theory:"I bet they never told ya they shrank Africa 40% to make it fit."

I'm not going to waste much space here, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out this is incorrect. What Hovind did is fail at the map maker's dilemma. There is no way to draw a proportion-correct spherical surface onto a flat surface. Africa wasn't shrunk except in that its projection onto a flat screen had to be distorted to fit. Cartographers have multiple projections for th

Others have already pointed out a couple easy-to-refute claims.But the real reason people don't usually refute these claims is, we don't have the time. It's obvious that "creation science" is as much pseudoscience as the Q-Ray [qray.com] to anyone who pays attention. Real scientists, in general, would much rather go about discovering reality than disproving your biblical fantasy.

It'd be kind of like asking the government to go around disproving every UFO sighting and conspiracy theory. It's a pointless waste of resour

Yes, every time evolution comes up, the same arguments against it are presented. Despite the fact that those same arguments have been discredited time and time again (if one would but do some basic research).

#1.

The only thing that has ever been observed is minor changes within a kind of animal over time: adaptation.

No, DNA mutations have been observed. Most of these mutations have NO adaptation value AT THE POINT IN TIME THAT THEY OCCURRED. Changes to the environment AFTER those mutations caused them to become advantageous.

#2.

No real evidence has ever been discovered (or much less reproduced) that one kind of animal can bring forth an animal of a different kind: i.e. a fish giving birth to a frog.

Yes, it has. The easiest example is a colony of fruit flies. Split them into two sub-colonies and within a dozen generations they will no longer be able to inter-breed between the colonies. They have become two different species.

Your fish/frog example is flawed because there is no reason to believe that one those different animals could achieve gestation within each other. Modern fish came from animals that were ALMOST identical to modern fish. Modern frogs came from animals that were ALMOST identical to modern frogs.

#3.

The idea that a complicated organism can "evolve" one part at a time is just idiotic, no matter how many people believe it.

And yet the evidence seems to support that theory.

And not only that, but the theory of evolution is the basis of our entire medical science now. And that seems to work, also.

No real evidence has ever been discovered (or much less reproduced) that one kind of animal can bring forth an animal of a different kind: i.e. a fish giving birth to a frog.

This is, of course, a straw-man, since evolution suggests no such thing. Evolution claims that if enough small steps are made, the result can be that the accumulated change is large. Your suggestion that no-one has ever observed a fish giving birth to a frog is akin to arguing that a journey of a mile can't be made, because no-one has observed anyone teleporting over that distance.

Perhaps you are hoping for something akin to the "prime mammal" fallacy though? That argument runs as follows: clearly only a m

Such an event would, in fact, completely disprove evolutionary theory, so I can only assume you've been mislead as to what Evolutionary Theory really is. There are literally trillions of billions of events that would disprove Evolution as a theory beyond any capability of repair, yet none of those things has happened.

Evolution would be the simplest thing in the universe to disprove if it were untrue, since reproduction is one of the few things that ha

That's the great thing about science: neither do scientists! They don't know what they have right, either. Isn't that a fucking hoot?

What they know is what *makes sense* based on observed facts. The epistemology of science is simple: if your explanation is contradicted by observation, it is not true. Otherwise, it *might* be true.

That's it. Nothing is ever "proven." It's just that some things only have one current explanation, and so we use those as our working assumptions. If another explanation comes around that isn't contradicted by the *observable facts*, that explanation is also considered.

Human nature makes us sure of ourselves-- sometimes *too* sure. But, for the most part, the scientific method, and the knowledge gained from that method, are self-correcting.

And that is why this museum can never win any converts from those who understand science. Their explanations do not cover the observable facts.

The problem is that most 'true believers' aren't just content to hold their own beliefs, and to indoctrinate their kids while they're young and accepting. All the born-agains I know says that it's also god's will for them to convert others and "bring us to Christ's truth." That's not tolerance, and if the rational people of the world refuse to make a stand against this kind of ancient bullshit, then religious mania will take us over. Just look at the 'moral majority' of the 70s carrying Reagan into office, or our current situation with George Bush.

And it's ridiculous to put religious belief on par with scientific explanations for how things came to be. Science generates hypotheses; those hypotheses are tested with observation and experiment, and the ones that hold up become theories, which will be amended or rejected when contradictory evidence is found. When science doesn't know an answer, it speculates, but it does not proclaim. Contrast this with religion, which tells us god made everything, and our brains can't comprehend the awesomeness of it all. What proof do they offer for these extraordinary claims? Oh, no proof, see, because it's all about faith--believing DESPITE the fact that all they really have to back it up is a book, and the words of 'holy men' who, of course, have a vested interest in keep the sheeple flocking in one direction.

Religion is poison to rationality, and we lose sight of that at our own peril.

Don't confuse science with religion - the big bang theory is not taken on faith. It is a falsifiable [wikipedia.org] scientific theory like any other. It most certainly can be proved wrong, if evidence is found that is not consistent with the model of the universe expanding from a denser state. Scientists spend a lot of time and money looking for such evidence, for example, the WMAP [wikipedia.org] probe, which measures the properties of the cosmic microwave background to test the big bang theory. So far, the theory has checked out, but

I agree 100% with your "let's peacefully co-exist". I am content to let everyone believe what they want and to express what they like as long as they do the same for others. So don't take my expression below to be an attempt to convert or insult yours or anyone elses beliefs, but rather as an expression of my view.I am an athiest and I believe natural selection to be the orgin of the species, as it were. The big bang is too abstract for me to seriously consider, but it might as well be true as it doesn't

Evolution has nothing to do with religion. I don't care if you're Hindu, Voodoo, Greek (pagan), Seikh, Muslim, Wiccan, or Catholic--evolution has nothing to do with religion.

If you decide to ignore all the evidence out there that supports evolution (including its laboratory use, and as a basis for creating new technology [technologyreview.com]), that's your choice, but realize you lose credibility with everyone else that decides not to ignore the evidence.

Peacefully co-exist? Sure, but you and everyone else that says evolution isn't science should just be honest and say that you don't really believe in science, instead of hiding behind some pseudo-science like ID.